


stay the night

by tsunderestorm



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25528384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: The first time Cloud spends the night, it is an accident.
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Vincent Valentine
Kudos: 19





	stay the night

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://chanceoftsunderestorms.tumblr.com/post/103349343775/cloudvincent-drabble-1190-words-the-first).

The first time Cloud spends the night, it is an accident.

The delivery is simple enough; a small package wrapped in brown paper and twine, full of seeds for flowers for Kalm’s upcoming festival and he finishes it within minutes of arriving in the sleepy mining town, collects his payment and turns to leave. Vincent is there in the shadows, an undeniable presence half-hidden behind the arch of a doorway. Cloud is drawn to him the same way he was in Nibelheim, some sort of magnetic pull he can’t really explain.

(Maybe it’s the fact that their lives were forever changed on the same operating table, or maybe it’s something less…morbid, less morose.)

Vincent has a bottle of wine and a quiet apartment, and Kalm is free of the burnt chemical smell of lingering mako, sulfur from bombs, dead city stink. He does little and says less, only pours Cloud new glasses of wine from the thick-walled bottle when his cup empties. Cloud’s lips loosen (too much, he’ll grumble later) and he tells him everything – about Zack, Aerith, Tifa – and when he’s on the fourth glass he realizes it’s nice to not think. He falls asleep in Vincent’s bed and wakes to find himself covered in a familiar red cape, his phone sitting neatly beneath the keys to Fenrir beside the empty bottle of wine on the kitchen table.

(Vincent is nowhere in sight – unsurprising, honesty - but what Cloud _is_ surprised by is how much that fact hurts. He chalks it up to a hangover that he doesn’t really have and moves on.)

He slips out the door quietly and the sound of his bike roaring to life is an assault to the still morning silence, one he hopes that wherever Vincent is, he doesn’t hear. He tries to leave the feel of the familiar fabric on his bare shoulders behind along with the half-asleep hazy memory of cold fingers smoothing sleep-sweaty hair back from his forehead. People get hurt when they care about him, and Vincent has hurt enough.

–

The second time, it is necessity. He could try to lie, fabricate a story about picking a fight with a rowdy drunk at a small-town bar, say that he saved someone from a monster that snuck in from the forests surrounding the small town he delivered a package to, but lying to Vincent is pointless. He knows the way he’ll look – eyes narrowed, lips slightly pursed, brows slightly furrowed – he’ll know he’s lying in an instant. Vincent is good at reading people, Cloud knows. The truth is that the geostigma burned (he remembers the night that Vincent admitted that he knew, said quietly “You have geostigma,” a death sentence in six syllables) and he’d lost his focus, skidded down a hill and off of his bike. He’s bleeding on the doormat by the time he gets to Vincent’s small apartment and the man just sighs, shakes his head and catches Cloud as he pitches forward, weak and wobbly.

Cloud expects the lecture. He’d steeled himself for it on the walk up the rickety stairs to Vincent’s doorstep. Vincent tells him that he can’t run forever, that he can’t go around pretending that he’s on his own when he _knows_ their friends are always there. He hesitates on the word _friend_ like its unfamiliar, like it tastes strange on the tip of his tongue and Cloud wonders if anyone from their journey has bothered to contact Vincent since it ended. At the end of it, there is a cure materia in the gunman’s good hand and it feels like cool, fresh water when he heals the scrapes on Cloud’s arm.

He’s too reckless, Vincent thinks, but then again, he’s always thought that. Cloud rushes headlong into danger, swinging a sword that he’s still not sure how he manages to wield (it’s not that he’s _frail_ , he knows know, but sometimes he just seems so small compare to the weight of the world that seems to rest on his shoulders for one so young) and Vincent knows it’s none of his business, but something about Cloud is special. One year ago, he was a friendly face out of place in a house of horrors, looking like some black-clad biblical angel, all blonde hair and blue eyes, the first friendly touch since Lucrecia. In his bed, Cloud smells like car exhaust and leather with the faint hint of flowers underneath it all, and on a night when the only memories that Vincent’s tired mind can conjure up are a closed coffin and the smell of blood and mako, it’s the sweetest smell in the world.

–

The third time, it is intentional. Cloud tells himself on the way there that he’s just trying to get away (from Edge, from responsibilities, from the ghosts of his past that he’s trying to reconcile with the fragile future, from everything) but really he’s just there for _Vincent_. He thinks about telling the man he’s there to ask him a question (about geostigma, about the past and Sephiroth, who Vincent seems to know an odd amount about; about the future, who will watch over Tifa and the kids when Cloud is gone) but he forgets to make a question up the minute Vincent opens the door, the minute Cloud presses against him and rests his head against his chest.

They will say they never saw it coming, but they did, a slow build and a sweet burn. Cloud touches him first because he knows Vincent won’t, runs his fingers up Vincent’s left arm, over a hated metal gauntlet and sensitive scar tissue and Vincent shivers even though the night is warm. Cloud’s touch is delicate, his fingertips less calloused than he had anticipated, and he looks so thoughtful at the skin his fingertips trace. So sincere – like he’s putting every bit of effort into making himself touch someone else for the first time in months.

The first thing that Cloud notices about Vincent’s touch (when he finally gets it in his waking hours instead of hazy half-dreams) is that it is cold; fingertips like ice and skin with a death-chill, like something leeched the warmth from his boy years ago. It’s nice, he thinks, to relax with him – it soothes the burning chemical rush of Cloud’s mako-enhanced blood and he can feel every touch like the nerves are raw and exposed. His touch is gentle (which surprises him) and precise (which does not, he’s seen Vincent strike a monster dead center from an impossible distance) and is caught somewhere between methodical and loving, shy despite the years he has on him.

Neither of them is the talkative type; after all, they talk more to themselves than other people, argue with their insides. They don’t need words, not when Cloud’s eyes are intense and bright, when Vincent’s are dark claret and they both know what’s happening, know that it’s been a long time coming. The room is quiet except for Vincent’s low groans and Cloud’s muffled gasps, the occasional hiss when Vincent digs his fingers in to flushed skin and they don’t have to say “I missed you”.


End file.
